of grievances in general. Sir Francis Burdett is but the type and the best known instance of a whole class of members who in former times were always ready to state any one's complaints, without much inquiry whether they were true; to bring forward a case, without much asking whether it were very well founded; to make a general declamation about the sufferings of the country which was a kind of caveat against abuses in general, and might be construed as a protest against any particular one which chanced to occur. Such undiscriminating and vague invectives had their use: they prevented gross instances of administrative harshness, - at least they tended to prevent them; they prevented the air of politics from becoming stagnant; they broke the monotony of class domination. But it may be questioned whether on the whole their influence was beneficial: these reckless orators had but little moral weight; they were too ready with their statements to get them trusted, they were too undiscriminating in their objections for those objections to have influence. A weak Opposition is commonly said to be more advantageous to a Government than no Opposition at all: it gives an impression to the public that all which can be said against the plans of the Cabinet has been said; it gives an impression that what is unchecked is checked, that what is uncontrolled is controlled; it diminishes. the practical responsibility of an administration, by diminishing the popular conception of its power. In the same way, the vague demagogues who occasionally appeared in the old House of Commons did not weaken the substantial power of the classes that ruled there. They were "his Majesty's objectors": it was their province to say that whatever was done, was done wrong. It was not therefore of much consequence what the administration did: they were sure of its being opposed, they were sure of its being carried; and they had therefore the advantage of complete power without the odium of enforcing silence.

A despotism disguised in this manner is perhaps more uncontrolled than any other despotism. Such, however, was the mode in which the attempt of our old system of representation to give special members to the lowest classes really operated. It failed in what may be considered its characteristic function: the ideas of the lowest classes on politics were still unheard in the legislature, because those classes had no ideas. A confused popular feeling sometimes sent popular orators to Parliament; but the kind of indiscriminate objection and monotonous invective which those orators made use of without ceasing, seem to have been rather an assistance than an obstruction to the governing classes. The lesson of the whole history indubitably is, that it is in vain to lower the level of political representation beneath the level of political capacity; that below that level you may easily give nominal power, but cannot possibly give real power; that at best you give a vague voice to an unreasoning instinct, that in general you only give the corruptible an opportunity to become corrupt.

It is often said, and commonly believed, that the old system of representation secured under almost all circumstances the existence and the continuance of what is called a strong Government; it is believed that under that system the administration of the day had almost always the power to carry any legislative measure which it deemed beneficial, and to do any executive act which it might think fit. History, however, when it is accurately reviewed, affords little or no confirmation of this idea. Many parts of the history of England during the existence of our old Constitution bear on the very face of them the most conspicuous evidence that there was then no security for the existence of a strong executive Government. Many administrations during the last century, so far from being pre-eminently powerful, were not moderately coherent. The earlier part of George III.'s reign is simply the history of a series of feeble Governments,

VOL. IV.-26

which had little power to act as they intended or to legislate as they desired. The traditional notion of the strength of Governments in former times is founded upon the enormous strength of the administrations which successively directed the long struggle with France and Napoleon. The French Revolution frightened the English nation; it haunted the people of that generation so much that they could not look anywhere but they imagined that they saw the traces. of it. Priestley interpreted the prophecies by means of it; Mitford wrote Grecian history by the aid of it. If its effect was so striking in the out-of-the-way parts of literature, in politics its effect might well be expected to be extreme. It was extreme: the English people were terrified into unity; they ceased to be divided into parliamentary sections, as their fathers were divided or as their grandchildren are now divided. The process by which the unanimity of the nation created a corresponding unanimity in the House of Commons was simple and was effectual. The noblemen and gentlemen who had the greatest influence in the counties, and a certain number of whom were proprietors of boroughs, -the class which, as we have seen, had a despotic control over the House of Commons as it then was, felt the antipathy to French principles as much as any other class; perhaps they did not feel it more-though some persons have thought they did than the rest of the nation, but they undoubtedly did not feel it less. The Parliament was as united in its dislike to Jacobinism and in its resistance to Napoleon as the nation was, and it could not be more so. The large majorities, therefore, of the administrations of Mr. Pitt and Lord Liverpool are not attributable to any peculiar excellence in the parliamentary Constitution of that period; any tolerable system of parliamentary representation would equally have produced them: the country was too united for even an approximate representation of it not to be so.

It is undoubtedly, however, believed by very many persons that the old system of representation contained a peculiar machinery for securing the strength of the executive. This theory, it has been well observed, constituted "the esoteric doctrine of the Tory party." "The celebrated question asked by the Duke of Wellington, How is the king's government to be carried on if the bill passes?' which has since received a practical answer, indicates without concealment the real view of English government entertained by him and his party: they held that if the majority of the House of Commons consisted of persons not nominated by great borough proprietors, but freely chosen by genuine popular election, the government could not be carried on; they believed it to be necessary that a Government should repose upon an immovable phalanx of members for close boroughs, and that the members returned for open seats should be a minority who would confine themselves to criticizing the Government in their speeches, without being able to shake its stability by their votes."* In this conception there was indeed an obvious difficulty: it provided that a large majority in Parliament should be always maintained by the close union of the members for the smaller boroughs, but who was to keep those members themselves united? They represented only the proprietors of their respective seats, and who was to keep either them or those proprietors always of one mind? If the nation at large was divided, why should not these persons partake of the division? The advocates of this theory had a ready answer: they said that the proprietors of the boroughs and the members for them were to be kept on the side of the Government by means of the patronage of the Government; they thought that places should be offered to the borough owners and to the borough members for their friends and for themselves, and that in this way they might be kept united and be always induced

* Edinburgh Review, January, 1859 [article "Parliamentary Reform "].

to support the administration. This theory was not a theory merely it was reduced to practice by several Prime Ministers,-by the Duke of Newcastle, by Sir Robert Walpole, and by others. Those who tried it had undoubtedly a great advantage: they had the materials that were needful,-they had the patronage. We have no space to inquire how the establishments of the last century came to be so cumbrous; but most cumbrous they were. We are amazed nowadays at the names of the old sinecures, at the number of halfuseless places, at what seems the childish lavishness of the public offices; but this profusion, though not perhaps created for a purpose, was used for a purpose. Old feudal offices, which had once served to mark the favor or the gratitude of the Crown, were employed as a kind of purchase money to buy the adhesion of parliamentary proprietors; peerages, too, were used to the same end: all the available resources of the age were in truth concentrated upon it. In part this consistent exertion of very great means of influence was effectual,-sometimes it really did make a Government strong; and some writers, who have not duly weighed the facts of history, have believed that it always must do so: but there are in its very nature three fundamental defects, which must always hinder its working for a long period with constant efficiency.

The

In the first place, the theory of this machinery is that the patronage of the Crown is to be used to purchase votes; but who is to use the patronage? theory assumes that it is to be used by the minister of the day; according to it, the head of the party which is predominant in Parliament is to employ the patronage of the Crown for the purpose of confirming that predominance. But suppose that the Crown chooses to object to this; suppose that the king for the time being should say, "This patronage is mine; the places in question are places in my service; the pensions in question are pensions from me: I will